The building industry has long used overlapping shingles in construction. More specifically, roofing shingles are generally made from a flexible sheet of felt which has been saturated or coated with a waterproof substance such as asphalt and then covered with a weather-resistant surface of granular mineral material, such as slate or granulated rock. Such shingles are usually rectangular in shape and combined with other substantially identical shingles in an overlapping relation to thereby provide a protective cover for a sloping roof surface. Roofing shingles have long served as relatively inexpensive alternatives to tile, slate and wood roofing shingles.
The felted fibrous substrate or membrane has been most commonly formed of rag, wood, paper, jute or other organic or inorganic fibers on a machine similar to that used for manufacturing paper. The felt material is impregnated with asphalt, generally a blown petroleum derivative, by immersion, flowing, spraying, roller coating, or by a combination of such treatments, with excess saturant removed by scraping. The waterproofing character of the asphalt is the main attribute of the final product and the felt serves in a secondary status as a carrier, substrate and preserver of the asphalt.
Molded plastic siding panels are also well known. Siding panels or shingles are often manufactured from synthetic thermoplastic polymers, including polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene, polyethylene, and various mixtures and copolymers thereof. This siding is also made to simulate the look of natural wood shingles in different styles including clapboard and dutchlap styles. Siding has also been produced to simulate brick and stone.
Materials such as slate and cedar roof shingles, and brick, stucco, or shake siding are desired due to their bulk, varied surface contours, shading, dimensionality, color, bulky edge profiles as well as other properties. It is desired to produce roofing and siding shingles having these properties at a low cost with manufactured materials. This has been accomplished in many different shingle designs by use of various shadings, shadow lines, multi-layers, tabs, and various tab designs and sheet designs with rectangular, hexagonal, arcuate, square and irregular tabs and tab recesses. Examples of such designs include, U.S. Pat. Nos. D484,992, D482,141, D452,917, D426,002, D406,362, D403,088, D403,087, D452,334, D388,195, and D376,660.
Manufacturers of building materials have long recognized that as they approach a more natural appearance of slate or wood shingles, the cost of the materials rises. The goal of producing inexpensive roofing and siding that has the physical appearance of more expensive wood and slate has eluded those skilled in the art.
The installation of conventional composite shingles is also tedious and time consuming since such shingles are applied in a regular pattern which requires precise alignment of adjacent courses so as to avoid a haphazard wavy appearance. Installing the above described shingles to a roofing or siding surface generally comprises the steps of:
a) affixing a course of shingles to a portion of a roofing or siding substrate;
b) affixing another course of the shingle to a remaining portion of the roofing or siding substrate and on a portion of a previously shingled portion having the shingles; and
c) repeating step b N times until the roofing or siding substrate is covered with the shingles.
Typically laterally elongated plastic siding panels are nailed to a wall support surface in horizontal rows partially overlapping each other in order to provide a pleasing appearance combined with a water-resistant protective layer over the support surface. The plastic panels are typically installed by nailing several adjacent courses to a wall support surface, starting with a bottom course. A lower marginal edge region of each panel in courses above the bottom course overlaps a panel in the course immediately below. Side marginal edge regions of each panel overlap side marginal regions of adjacent panels.
A single ply building membrane is a membrane typically applied in the field using a one layer membrane material (either homogeneous or composite) rather than multiple layers built-up. These membranes have been widely used on low slope roofing and other applications but have not been acceptable replacements for shingles and many other roofing and siding materials. These membranes typically comprise bottom and top polyolefin based sheets with a reinforcement scrim. Other materials used for these membranes include but not limited to polyvinyl chloride (PVC), Chlorosulfonated polyethylene (CSPE or CSM), chlorinated polyethylene (CPE), ethylene propylene diene terpolymer (EPDM), atactic polypropylene (APP) modified bitumen, and styrene butadiene styrene (SBS) modified bitumen.
A typical method of preparing these membranes comprises the steps of: unwinding a support sheet, scrim or stabilizing material; coating the support by extrusion of a molten compounded polymers, and one or more fillers; cooling and solidifying the membrane; and winding the membrane into a roll.